It’s the debate that all “NBA heads” love to have with their friends: “who’s your list of the greatest NBA players of all time?” It’s also a great way to pit the LeBron James superfans, “Kobe-stans,” and Michael Jordan loyalists against each other in a seemingly endless debate, while the old timers all sit around and tell us how we forgot about so-and-so.
Regardless, with a history of players as rich as that of the NBA, especially when you take into account the boom of talent we’ve seen in the league over the last 40 years, it’s time we revisited the list of the greatest players to ever lace it up in the National Basketball Association.
Honorable Mention: James Harden
James Harden’s torrid scoring pace and one-man offensive production has already catapulted him into the conversation of “greatest shooting guards of all time.” While detractors will point to the fact that he not only hasn’t won an NBA title, but he’s also looked like the deer in the proverbial headlights on more than one occasion in the playoffs, there’s simply no denying how consistently dominant he’s been during the regular season, as a member of the Houston Rockets.
Between 2015 and 2018, Harden averaged a ridiculous 29.5 points, 9.1 assists, and 6.6 rebounds per game, capping off one of the most impressive three-year runs of any player in league history. The 2018 NBA MVP should’ve also won it the year before, if voters weren’t so enamored with Russell Westbrook’s triple-double stat line.
Continue reading on the next page.